Jim Collins in one of his books said –
to be truly successful a Business Owner needs Productive Paranoia, Empirical Creativity and Fanatic Discipline in equal measure.
He challenged us to look at the REALLY successful business entrepreneurs over the last 100 years and examine their lives.
He also said,
If you stay in the game long enough, good luck tends to return, but if you get knocked out, you’ll never have the chance to be lucky again. Luck favours the persistent, but you can persist only if you survive.
Paul Gaugin, the famous French Painter, dropped out of society and lived the remainder of his life on an Island in the South Pacific. Shortly before his death, he finished his last masterpiece, entitled “Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?”
About this, he writes,
I have put all my energies into this work before dying — a passion so painful, a vision so clear.
Many of the creators in the West have passed through long years of suffering and if not suffering worked and toiled so long and hard, that you’d be forgiven for thinking that it must have barely been worthwhile. Some even got a little unhinged.
Now, this “unhingedness” is not just confined to creativity but to the work we all do as well…
Can you recall a time when you simply went nuts when you had devoted too much time to just work alone?…
Can you remember when you wanted to punch the computer or smash something as you laboured tirelessly trying to break the success code, leverage your time better or get out from under the mountain of work and stress that comes from everyone else’s expectations?…
Some of us work with a creative spirit and with a loving approach to the work as if it was like giving birth to something great and meaningful while others work towards success with single-minded purpose.
Each of us learns something about ourselves through the work and success process which can be painful if we’re too goal orientated. The sad thing would be that we learned nothing about ourselves in the process of giving birth to our work, creativity or passion.
We can learn something from the East in our approach to work, or employment, passion, purpose or whatever else we do to find the holy grail, crack the millionaire’s mindset or raise our children.
Unfortunately, Western society lives under a general addiction to work and a weird picture of what success is meant to represent.
Warren Beatty once said that a successful person is…
…the one who doesn’t know whether they are working or playing.
They don’t have a “go to work,” mindset and then a “go home and relax,” mindset.
Medical researchers years ago, did tests and it was revealed that this divisive approach to work and play did not advance the health of many of the trial subjects; in fact, it was the determinant factor in some diseases like blood pressure, heart disease, stress and more.
The moral of the story to me is that…
…if you don’t love what you do then do what you love.
The higher achievement is to love whatever you do. I feel this is more practical because not everyone in the WHOLE world is fortunate enough to do what they love.
Everyone out there is saying, “Follow Your Dream,” but not everyone can do that. Those that can do it are fortunate and perhaps they are the ones who have this productive paranoia, empirical creativity and fanatic discipline…
The rest may benefit by embracing where they are, who they are and loving what they do.
~ Chris Borrett